My 2025 Hiking Bucket List
A Quick 2024 Recap
I did some really great hikes this year. My favorite was a multi-day adventure along the coast of Lake Superior in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore via the North Country Trail. This trail is very popular with Michiganders and *possibly* the most beautiful trail in the entire Midwest. Probably best to keep it a secret...I also hiked along along Minnesota's Superior Hiking Trail and along Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail. I have to admit that the Lake Superior region blows pretty much everywhere else I've been in the Midwest out of the water, so Wisconsin unfortunately does not receive any accolades. While I do love Wisconsin's state parks and national forests, how can a park like Devil's Lake possibly compare to the sheer rugged beauty of the Upper Peninsula or the North Shore?
During the school year, I hiked on the Appalachian Trail and various parks in the Virginia/Maryland/West Virginia area. I loved hiking through Catoctin Mountain Park in the dense, omnipresent fog of early autumn and listening to the pitter-patter of rain in the lean-tos. However, my favorite was probably the Massanutten Trail in West Virginia. This hidden gem runs for about 70 miles parallel to the Appalachian Trail, though I only did a quarter of it over a weekend. It was cold when I went and I didn't bring enough clothes to stay warm at camp. But on the plus side, the gorgeous peak fall colors have seared themselves into my brain. And I'll never forget watching the fiery-orange sunset from Duncan Knob.
Rough Ideas for 2025
There's still a bit of time left in 2024. I don't know how things will shake out, but there's a chance I'll get to fly to Phoenix to see a friend—and take them on a trip through the Superstition Mountains! That'd be my first experience backpacking in the desert, and it'd be such an amazing opportunity. But if that doesn't pan out, I'll probably still traipse around southern Florida while my family is vacationing. Big Cypress National Preserve is at the top of my list, though I've heard it's still very waterlogged this time of year—when the date comes closer I'll do more careful planning. We shall see.Springtime will be the time to train. I'm slowly gaining the fitness and experience to do higher mileage days when I'm backpacking—I think this suits my hiking style well, since I often go alone and tend to get bored around camp. It also fits because I love seeing more scenery, challenging myself physically, and getting properly deep into the backcountry.
Come spring, I'm looking to explore the area around my university more, especially Shenandoah National Park, George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, and Monongahela National Forest. The Dolly Sods are very high on my bucket list, although they're very popular. I think I just need to have that experience; otherwise, I'll never know what makes that place so great!
All of this is really just preparation for my two big hikes in the summer, though. On either side of whatever summer internship I end up doing, I plan to hike the 125-mile Centennial Trail in South Dakota and the entirety of the 310-mile Superior Hiking Trail. I am so incredibly excited for these two hikes. They'll be invaluable opportunities for me to finally test my mettle as a long-distance hiker, since in 2026, I plan to do the Appalachian Trail after I graduate. I've been thinking about these two trails a great deal already, planning gear in my head; doing exercise regimens centered on increasing my strength, maximizing my endurance, and minimizing my risk of injury; and obsessing over logistics and pace. These are the two goals that are really keeping me going right now.
Gear Thoughts
It really isn't a blog post about hiking if there isn't some pedantic discussion about gear at some point, is there? Bonus points if it's about ultralight (which this will be).I'll do a full gear post at some point with photos and whatnot. I'm almost fully dialed in with my three-season kit: the only piece I'm still putting together is my backpack, as I'm still using my Granite Gear Crown 3 (which, to be clear, has served me faithfully and to great effect). But the 60 liter capacity is honestly way too much for me at this point; I could get away with 40 liters for pretty much all of my uses, and I can probably do with even less than that for short trips and fair-weather backpacking. I'm looking at Scott Burrill's fantastic (and very stylish) backpacks under Virginia Foothills Designs, and I'll probably be ordering a 40-ish liter custom pack from him soon. The goal is to get something very twee and cottage-y with fern and mushroom patterns. I've already ordered a sample patch of printed VX07 from Ripstop by the Roll, but they've yet to ship it. Scott has been super helpful so far, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with. His designs resemble the style Pa'lante has, minus the weight creep that has come with some of their newer releases (the V2 and the Desert Pack, for example). As a huge fan of Pa'lante's aesthetic, Scott's packs really hit the mark on both stylish and practical.
This might be sacrilege to some, but I do care a lot about my looks on the trail! I genuinely kind of despise the orgiastic blending of garish patterns and colors that predominates in long-distance gear, and I want to put together outfits for the trail that are actually, y'know, cute. This is why I really like the clothing Topo Designs, Pa'lante, Hikerkind, etc. make even though they're objectively neither the best-performing nor the most cost-effective clothing you could purchase. I mean, you have to agree that this overpriced polo is extremely pretty, even if it is also extremely expensive for no discernible reason. (Or this turtleneck. God, I love turtlenecks.) But even though fashion matters to me, I cannot justify dropping that kind of money on things which, let's be honest, are very poor investments in terms of making backpacking easier and safer. As consolation, I picked up an adorable dress during REI's winter sale that I can't wait to take out on the trail when it gets warm again. I'm afraid, however, that my trail fashion is still a work-in-progress for now. (I do own at least two or three pieces of garish clothing that I regularly wear. As a college student, I frequently find myself scraping the bottom of the barrel of used gear. But hey, a 30 dollar Alpha Direct sweater is 30 dollars, even if it shares a color palette with moldy lemons.)
I'm in the process of making a synthetic quilt in APEX 3.6, and that'll be my go-to for warm weather (nighttime lows above 40 degrees Fahrenheit). But I've been procrastinating on it. For Black Friday, I purchased a Katabatic Alsek 22 that I'll take on colder trips. I've heard so many good things about Katabatic, and I'm super excited to take it out. I've been using a Naturehike sleeping bag thus far, and though it is really fairly nice, the temperature rating is hopelessly (perhaps dangerously) optimistic and it's pretty much the heaviest thing in my pack. So I'll be happy to retire it once and for all.
A couple other changes made a big impact in my kit this year: I made the decision to switch from my Durston X-Mid 1 (the silpoly version) to a 9x6 silpoly tarp, and from a Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite to a cut-down ZLite CCF pad. These two choices reduced my pack weight considerably: from roughly 30 ounces for my X-Mid to roughly 8 ounces for my tarp, and from 12 ounces for my XLite to a mere 6 ounces for my cut-down ZLite.
I find that the ZLite is plenty comfortable and actually works a lot better than any inflatable pad I've used on sloped ground, since it doesn't slide too much (and let's be real, it's pretty hard to find flat ground a lot of them time). It also never feels like I'm going to fall off, which is often the case on the regular width XLite. The fact that I've managed to get better sleep on my cut-down ZLite on the hard ground in my dorm than on my XLite speaks volumes to the comfort. But I'll still keep the inflatable around for colder weather.
I'm really stoked to use my tarp more next year, as I've only practiced pitching it so far. But I already love the minimalism, and it's really fun to practice knots with it. I'm using Paria 1.5mm guylines with Skurka's knot system, which works wonderfully. I am worried about strong winds and rain, though, so I'm going to take it out as much as I can on test trips whenever the weather gets bad to practice foul-weather pitches. I also got a Borah Gear bug mesh bivy during Black Friday, which should come in at around 5 ounces. I'm also super excited to try that out. It's amazing how cheap and light this setup was: the tarp was 55 dollars from some guy on the internet, and the Borah bivy was 77 dollars on Black Friday. That's a mere 132 dollars for a double-wall shelter that weighs just a tad more than the 600 dollar Zpacks Plex Solo Lite! With low bug pressure, I could easily forgo the bivy, increasing my weight savings even further. And if I splurged on DCF (which I refuse to do on a philosophical level), I could easily get my tarp and bivy setup under 10 ounces, and it'd still cost less than a DCF tent. That's crazy light! Tarp and bivy might be the way to go, you guys. But I won't commit to this argument until I actually sit out the most nightmarish weather possible under a tarp.
My hope is that by the time I've finally assembled everything, my cold-weather three-season base weight will be under 8 pounds, and with a bear canister, it'll be under 10 pounds. This seems very doable, judging by my gram-counting on PackWizard. In hotter weather, where I don't have to bring as much insulation, I should have no problem getting down to below 7 pounds. My most minimal kit would be under 6 pounds (but I'd only be bringing a bug headnet and my Gossamer Gear Thinlight, which could be interesting on a trail like the SHT, to say the least). Either way, my base weight will be low enough that I won't really have to worry about my pack weight anymore as long as I pack my food intelligently. After many months researching, saving, and waiting, ultralight bliss is finally within reach.
That's everything for now, I think. If I do end up in the Superstitions over the winter, I'll have an opportunity to finally test out my full ultralight kit. And maybe I'll post a trip report! Just thinking about it is exciting, and the thought of being out there in the wilderness again helps keep the demons at bay.
Until next time,
Bella